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Abstract
Timbuktu has recently become an ‘iconic’ symbol of the pre-colonial written tradition in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, scholars have often only focused their research on the content of the manuscripts and the scholarly traditions they represent. In this article I examine the ‘life’ of the Fondo Ka'ti archive, one of the many private libraries that have surfaced in the town in recent years, and that has positioned itself apart from other libraries due to its unique historical construction. I argue that archival biography is the most relevant approach when analysing this topic and offer an assessment of the sources for such a biography. Therefore, I treat the Fondo Ka'ti archive itself as an historical artefact, looking both at its conditions of production as well as at how its own being has in turn affected the context it finds itself in. Such a perspective enables fresh insights into the entangled processes that produce history, it can point to the hybridities embedded in both archives and identities and set up alternative sources for histories.
Notes
1This paper is part of an ongoing PhD project at the University of Cape Town (UCT), entitled ‘Africa starts in the Pyrenees: Mahmud Ka'ti, connecting al-Andalus and Timbuktu’. The financial assistance of the AW Mellon Foundation and of the National Research Foundation (NRF) towards this research is hereby acknowledged. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the author and are not necessarily to be attributed to the AW Mellon Foundation or to the NRF. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the Archive and Public Culture (APC) Research Initiative at UCT for their substantial input towards this paper.
2See, among others, her latest article on this topic: C. Hamilton, ‘Backstory, Biography, and the Life of the James Stuart Archive’, History in Africa, 38 (2011), 319–341.
3F. Dubois, Tombouctou la mystérieuse (Paris: Figaro, 1897).
4For the debates on the origins of the Ka'ti name see J. Hunwick, ‘Studies in the Ta'rikh al-fattash: (1) Its Authors and Textual History’, Research Bulletin for the Centre of Arabic Documentation [University of Ibadan], 5 (1969), 57–65, and N. Levtzion, ‘A Seventeenth-Century Chronicle by Ibn al-Mukhtar: A Critical Study of the Ta'rikh al-Fattash’, BSOAS, 34, 3 (1971), 571–593. For Diadié Haïdara's interpretation see detailed discussion further on in the article.
5See detailed discussion of the pilgrimage and the investiture in Levtzion, ‘A Seventeenth-Century Chronicle’, 583–586.
6J. Hunwick, Al-Sa‘dī's Ta'rīkh al-sūdān down to 1613 & other contemporary documents (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 260.
7O. Houdas and M. Delafosse, eds and trans, Tarikh el-Fettach ou Chronique du Chercheur pour servir à l'histoire des villes, des armées et des principaux personages du Tekrour par Mahmoûd Kâti ben El-Hâdj El-Motaouakkel Kâti et l'un de ses petits-fils. Texte arabe et traduction française, Publications de l’École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, 5th series, vol. 10 (Paris: E. Leroux, 1913–14, reprint, Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1981). Hereafter TF. An English translation of the above translation has just been published. See C. Wise, Ta'rīkh al-fattāsh: The Timbuktu Chronicles (1493–1599) (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2011). However, since this last translation is based entirely on the first, all references refer back to the former.
8J.-L. Amselle and E. Sibeud, eds, Maurice Delafosse. Entre orientalisme et ethnographie: l'itinéraire d'un africaniste (1870–1926) (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 1998).
9 TF, x. For a detailed discussion on the motivations of the forgery see the seminal article by Levtzion, ‘A Seventeenth-Century Chronicle’, and more recently the discussion in relation to race by B.S. Hall, A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 69–74.
10 TF, xii.
11Personal communications with the author in Timbuktu on 15 April 2011.
12His early works include: I. Diadié Haïdara et al., Españoles en la Curva del Rio Niger (Granada: Universidad de Granada y Diputación Provincial de Granada, 1991); I. Diadié Haïdara, El Bajá Yudar y la conquista saadí del Songhai (1591–1599) (Almería: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses y Ayuntamiento de Cuevas del Almanzora, 1993) and its French version, Jawdar Pasha et la conquête saâdienne du Songhai, 1591–1599 (Rabat: Institut des Études Africaines, 1996); and L'Espagne musulmane et l'Afrique subsaharienne (Bamako: Editions Donniya, 1997).
13The updated (as of February 2012) number of manuscripts can be found in I. Diadié Haïdara al-Quti, M. Ismail Haïdara, and S. Akhavan, Les Trésors Cachés de Tombouctou: Répertoire Général des Manuscrits de Fondo Kati (La famille de al-Quti) (Qom, Iran: The Grand Library of Ayatullah al-Uzma Marashi Najafi (R.A.) & The Fondo Kati Collection, 2012), of which I have a .pdf copy thanks to the library's director. Diadié Haïdara's ‘Introduction au Répertoire Général des Manuscrits de Fondo Kati, Tombouctou’ (459–461) in this volume gives a summary of the current numbers in the collection. For the historical collection also refer to I. Diadié Haïdara and H. Taore, ‘The Private Libraries of Timbuktu’, in S. Jeppie and S. Bachir Diagne, eds, The Meanings of Timbuktu (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2008), 271–275.
14Exhibition of a selection of Fondo Ka'ti manuscripts held in Sevilla in 2003 and its catalogue, M. Camacho Ramirez, ed., Fondo Ka'ti: Una bibliotéca Andalusí en Tombuctú (Sevilla: Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Relaciones Institucionales, 2003); I. Diadié Haïdara, Los últimos visigodos. La biblioteca de Tombuctú (Sevilla: Rd Editores, 2003); I. Diadié and M. Pimentel, Los otros Españoles. Los manuscritos de Tombuctú: andalusíes en el Níger (Madrid: Ediciones Martínez Roca, 2004). Before he had studied his collection in detail, Diadié Haïdara wrote a book on the Jewish presence in Timbuktu where he speculated on the Spanish Jewish origins of the Ka'ti family (I. Diadié Haïdara, Les juifs à Tombouctou: receuil des sources éìcrites realtives au commerce juif à Tombouctou au XIXèm siècle (Bamako: Editions Donniya, 1999). However, since that publication, he has revised his theory of the Ka'ti origins as explained in what follows and retracted those theories (personal communication with author, Cape Town, November 2011).
15The term ‘Spanish Muslim’ used in this context is a contested one. Its detractors argue that there was no such thing as a ‘Spanish’ identity in the medieval period, that a coherent ‘Spanish’ identity only came into being in the post-Reconquista period and thus the use of the term is anachronistic and ideological. However, I consciously utilise the term since it is employed by Diadié Haïdara and forms part of his argument about the relevance of the Fondo Ka'ti for present-day Spaniards. See discussion in the latter part of this article.
16A. Hofheinz, ‘Goths in the Lands of the Blacks: A Preliminary Survey of the Ka'ti Library in Timbuktu’, in S.S. Reese ed., The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 157.
17J. Hunwick, ‘Studies in the Ta'rikh al-Fattash III: Ka'ti Origins’, Sudanic Africa, 11 (2001), 114.
18Diadié and Pimentel, Los otros Españoles, 112.
19See Hunwick (‘Studies in the Ta'rikh al-Fattash: III’, 112), who concludes he is bin Ziyad's grandson, and later that he is his great-grandson (J. Hunwick, Arabic Literature of Africa: The Writings of Western Sudanic Africa, Vol. 4, (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 38). Hofheinz, (‘Goths in the Lands of the Blacks’, 164) states that more research is needed to clarify their exact relationship.
20S. Jeppie, ‘History for Timbuktu: Ahmad Bul'araf, Archives, and the Place of the Past’, History in Africa, 38 (2011), 401–416.
21See Part IV, ‘The Timbuktu Libraries’, in Jeppie and Bachir Diagne, The Meanings of Timbuktu, 265–329.
22Through personal communication in my interviews with him in April 2011 in Timbuktu and in Cape Town in November 2011, as well as in his book, Los últimos visigodos.
23For this I have used several unpublished documents and lists of the Ka'ti Library, given to me by Diadié Haïdara in November 2011 with permission to utilise them in my research, for which I am very grateful.
24‘Liste Récapitulative des manuscrits du Fondo Kati’ (unpublished list, 2009), 1–4.
25‘Liste Récapitulative des manuscrits du Fondo Kati’ (unpublished list, 2009), 5–10.
26I. Diadié Haïdara, Annales: Dictionnaire Biographique des Wizigoths islamisés d'al-Andalus, de Castille et d'Afrique (unpublished manuscript), 30.
27I. Diadié Haïdara, Annales: Dictionnaire Biographique des Wizigoths islamisés d'al-Andalus, de Castille et d'Afrique (unpublished manuscript), 11–19.
28M. Abana, Rihla: Relato de un viaje por la curva del Níger y los desiertos del Sáhara en pos de un sueño llamado al-Ándalus según se narra en los manuscritos de Tombuctú, ed. Ismaël Didadié Haïdara, trans. Ada Romero Sánchez (Cordoba: Almuzara, 2006).
29‘Manifiesto para la salvación del Fondo Ka'ti’, ABC, 25 February 2000.
30These include José Ángel Valente, Noble Prize for Literature winner José Saramago, Juan Goytisolo, Antonio Muñoz Molina and the French Hispanist Bernard Vincent.
31Diadié and Pimentel, Los otros Españoles; Diadié Haïdara, Los últimos visigodos; A. Llaguno Rojas, La conquista de Tombuctú: La gran aventura de Yuder Pachá y otros hispanos en el País de los Negros (Cordoba: Almuzara, 2006); A. Llaguno Rojas, Tombuctú: El reino de los renegados andaluces (Cordoba: Almuzara, 2008). In the same vein, also see From Cordoba to Timbuktu: History of the Renegade Sulayman del Pozo [A. Cano and V. Millán, De Córdoba a Timbuktu: Historia del renegado Sulayman del Pozo (Cordoba: Almuzara, 2006)], and From the Alhambra to Timbuktu: On How To Follow the Trace of The Spanish Moors [M. Jacobs, De la Alhambra a Tombuctú: de cómo seguirle la pista a los moros de España (Cordoba: Almuzara, 2009)].
32D. W. Cohen, The Combing of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), M.-R. Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), C. Hamilton, V. Harris, M. Pickover, G. Reid, R. Saleh, and J. Taylor, eds, Refiguring the Archive (Cape Town: David Philip, 2002), and A. Burton, ed., Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions and the Writing of History (Durham, NC & London: Duke University Press, 2005).
33A. Burton, ‘Introduction: Archive Fever, Archive Stories’, in Archive Stories, 1–24, 6.
34C. Hamilton, ‘The Public Life of an Archive: Archival Biography as Methodology’, paper presented at the Archive and Public Culture Workshop, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 2 September 2009, 11.
35Hamilton, ‘Backstory, Biography’, 339.
37Trouillot, Silencing the Past, 25.
36Hamilton, Archive and Public Culture Workshop, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 9–11 March 2011.
39Trouillot, Silencing the Past, 26.
38Trouillot, Silencing the Past, 27.
40P.F. de Moraes Farias, ‘Intellectual Innovation and Reinvention of the Sahel: The Seventeenth-Century Timbuktu Chronicles’, in Jeppie and Bachir Diagne, The Meanings of Timbuktu, 95.
41Hunwick, Arabic Literature of Africa, 38.
42Moraes Farias, ‘Intellectual Innovation’, 97.
43Moraes Farias, ‘Intellectual Innovation’, 98.
44P.F. de Moraes Farias, Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali: Epigraphy, Chronicles, and Songhay-Tuāreg History (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2003), lxxii. See chapter 2 of this work for a detailed textual discussion of the strategies used by the chronicles to achieve their aims.
45For an overview see, Amselle and Sibeud, Maurice Delafosse. Entre orientalisme et ethnographie.
46For details on this debate see J. Brun, ‘Notes sur le Tarikh-el-fettach’, Anthropos, 9 (1914), 595–596; J. Hunwick, ‘Studies in the Ta'rikh al-Fattash: (1)’; Levtzion, ‘A Seventeenth-Century Chronicle’; M. Ly, ‘Quelques remarques sur le Tarikh el-Fettach’, Bulletin de l'IFAN, 34, B, 3 (1972), 471–493.
47E.N. Saad, Social History of Timbuktu: The Role of Muslim Scholars and Notables, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 46–51.
48Hunwick, The Writings of Western Sudanic Africa, 38.
49Hunwick, The Writings of Western Sudanic Africa, 38.
50Hunwick, Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire.
51Hunwick, Arabic Literature of Africa.
52Hofheinz, ‘Goths in the Lands of the Blacks’, 179–181.
53Diadié Haïdara, ed., Marginalia: Corpus des marginalia des Wizigoths islamises d'Afrique. De Ali b. Ziyad al-Quti de Toledo a alfa Ismael b. Mahmud Kati III de Kirchamba (unpublished document), mss 02-57.
54Hofheinz, ‘Goths in the Land of the Black’, 180.
55Diadié Haïdara, Marginalia, mss 02-41.
56First examination of the notes by author in Timbuktu in April 2011.
57Hamilton, ‘The Public Life of an Archive’, 8.
58See footnote no 12 for titles and full references.
59Diadié and Pimentel, Los otros Españoles.
60See footnote 14 for other titles and full references.
61Hunwick, ‘Studies in the Ta'rikh al-Fattash III’, 111–114.
62Hofheinz, ‘Goths in the Lands of the Blacks’, 154–183.
63See Llaguno Rojas, La conquista de Tombuctú; Llaguno Rojas, Tombuctú; Cano and Millán, De Córdoba a Timbuktu; Jacobs, De la Alhambra a Tombuctú; Abana, Rihla.
64Llaguno Rojas, La conquista de Tombuctú; Tombuctú.
65Current up to 20 November 2011, when they lost the national elections.
66M. Cajal, La Alianza de Civilizaciones de las Naciones Unidas: Una Mirada al futuro (Madrid: Editorial Biblioteca Nueva, 2011).
67N. Paradela, ‘¿Godos en Tombuctú? Riesgos y desvaríos de la historia ficción’, Revista de libros, 98 (2005), 22–23.
68N. Paradela, ‘¿Godos en Tombuctú? Riesgos y desvaríos de la historia ficción’, Revista de libros, 98 (2005), 23.
69N. Paradela, ‘¿Godos en Tombuctú? Riesgos y desvaríos de la historia ficción’, Revista de libros, 98 (2005), 22.
71S. Jeppie, ‘Re/discovering Timbuktu’, in Jeppie and Bachir Diagne, The Meanings of Timbuktu, 8.
70S. Jeppie, ‘Re/discovering Timbuktu’, in Jeppie and Bachir Diagne, The Meanings of Timbuktu, 13.
74T. Mbeki, ‘The African Renaissance Statement of Deputy President, Thabo Mbeki, SABC, Gallagher Estate, 13 August 1998’, (http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/1998/mbek0813.htm), accessed 15 February 2012.
72L. Samarbakhsh-Liberge, ‘L’African Renaissance en Afrique du Sud: De l'utilité ou de l'utilisation de l'histoire?’, in F.-X. Fauvelle-Aymar, J.-P. Chrétien, and C.-H. Perrot, eds, Afrocentrismes: L'histoire des Africains entre Égypte et Amérique (Paris: Karthala, 2000), 381–400.
73P.F. de Moraes Farias, ‘Tombuctu, a África do Sul, e o Idioma Político da Renascença Africana’, paper delivered at the FUNAG-IPRI African Seminar in Rio de Janeiro on 2 March 2007, 6–7.
75Moraes Farias, ‘Tombuctu, a África do Sul’, 17–18.
76Moraes Farias, ‘Tombuctu, a África do Sul’, 17–18.
77J. Hunwick, Saharan Studies Association Newsletter, 8, 1–2 (November 2000), 3.
78Hamilton, ‘Backstory, Biography’, 339.